The Guy in the Black Hat

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Psalm 143: 3, 9, 12

June 25, 2017  3rd Sunday after Pentecost

Do Christians have enemies?  As you think about that, consider our text.  David, it seems, had enemies.  So, did St. Paul; he was even able to name names of his enemies in some of his letters.  Early Christians knew that they had enemies: you can spot your enemy rather easily when he’s trying to toss you into the arena with lions.  Martin Luther was quite clear about the enemies he had to battle as he fought to make the gospel clear.  Ask any of these people who their enemies were, and they wouldn’t need to think twice.  There was no question about it.  So, why is it that so many Christians, today, are so often hesitant to name their enemies, or even to admit that they might have an enemy?  If I were to ask you who your personal, day-to-day, enemies were, many of you would probably give me a surprised or maybe a confused look.  “Enemies?  I don’t have any enemies!”  Somehow, it just doesn’t seem right for Christians to have enemies.  It’s true of course, that the Bile tells us to do our best to get along with everyone, and we’re instructed to pray for and even to love our enemies.  But this hardly equates to not having any enemies, actually it’s worth remembering that to love an enemy, you’ve got to have an enemy.  The consistent assumption throughout the Bible is that God’s people are going to have enemies.  There will be those who are bent on the destruction of God’s people.  Which means, of course, that you yes, even you, have enemies.

Now that’s it’s OK to admit that you have enemies, be careful, though, not to be too hasty trying to single out those enemies.  You might end up labeling the wrong people as your enemy.  Your enemy is not the guy in the oversized SUV who forces you onto the shoulder as you try to merge onto I-64.  Your enemy is not the boss with high expectations that even cut into your time away from the office.  Your enemy is not the neighbor with the dog who barks around the clock, or the rooster who crows with abandon, whose car is always parked in front of your house, or whose lawn never gets cut when it should.  Your enemy is not your spouse who gently but consistently helps you remember that bad habit you are trying to break, or who points you in the right direction when you just want to feel sorry for yourself.  Your enemy is not your parents who keep tabs on you and work hard to stay involved in your life.  Your enemy is not your child who challenges almost every word out of your mouth.

It’s a sorry reality that we too often spend too much time, energy, and thought plotting and fighting desperate battles against people who aren’t our enemies at all.  Your enemy is not someone who does something you may not like, or who puts you in uncomfortable situations.  And your enemy is most certainly not someone who is trying to help you become more and more what God wants you to be.  Your brothers and sisters in Christ are never your enemies.  They may disagree with you, and even oppose your ideas, plans, and agenda, but other Christians are not ever your enemy.  None of these people are your enemy because none of them is bent on your eternal destruction.  None of them really wants to see you go to Hell.  But your true enemy does.  Your enemy is God’s enemy.  Your enemy is Satan himself.

But, of course, Satan doesn’t fight alone.  There is more than one name on the list of those who are enemies of God’s people.  Satan has a demonic host at his side, along with countless flesh and blood incarnations of those who share his goals and seek the downfall of Christian people.  And, yes, sad to say, there are even times when fellow believers are deceived and end up playing a role in some sinister game hatched by Satan.  There are times when other believers, even other members of your own family become tools of Satan and actually attack you and your faith.  But, those temporary agents of Satan aren’t the real enemy.  The real enemy, the one who rages against you simply because you belong to Christ, is Satan.  He’s the one you need to resist.  He’s the one you need to fight.  Before you throw yourself into battle against your enemy, make sure you are fighting the right enemy.  The church endures far too many casualties from friendly-fire.  Marriages turn into an ugly business when husbands and wives square off, each convinced that the other is the enemy.  Families become bloody battlefields where the wounds are self-inflicted.  Don’t turn your weapons on your friends and allies.  You need to keep the real enemy in your sights.

Satan has so many agents at work in this world.  Elected officials, popular celebrities, successful writers, even fellow employees, Satan has warriors among all of these groups.  Some of them are intentional and obvious in the battle they wage, others are more subtle.  You need to pay attention to all of them and be aware of their work.  To deny their existence is to be lulled into a false sense of security; and this breeds an apathy and nonchalance that are devastating.  A country at war lives with a heightened sense of vigilance and purpose.  A soldier preparing for battle is keenly alert, muscles taut, every nerve on edge.  Failing to recognize the enemy leads to carelessness and vulnerability.  Christians cannot afford to think that they have no enemies.  Satan and his forces are much too real to ignore.  You must engage the enemy.

Be careful, though.  Don’t make the mistake of only looking over your shoulder or behind the door, or in the ranks of professors, politicians, or the press to find your enemies.  Don’t think for a minute that your enemy is only somewhere “out there.”  No, your enemy is closer than you might expect.  Your enemy is uncomfortably, frightfully near.  If you’ve been to Disney’s Magic Kingdom, you’ve been to the Haunted Mansion, which is less frightening than it is entertaining—except for the very end of the ride…you know, that part when the deep voice reads the script through the speaker in your own personal “Doom Buggy” and warns you about the possibility of “hitch-hiking ghosts.”  About that same time your car is twisted toward a wall of mirrors, and of course, there in your own buggy with you is one or two holographic ghosts riding along.  But, the intriguing, potentially disarming, and maybe even frightening thing happens when the ghost that is seen reflected in the mirror is inadvertently superimposed right on top of a real person in the car.  The ghost and the guest are indistinguishable.  It’s a startling and an accurate image.

There is abundant truth in the old adage from the Pogo comic strip: “We have met the enemy and he is us!”  You know it is true.  The enemy who seriously threatens your relationship with God, the enemy that is often most detrimental to your continued life with Christ, is your own flesh.  King David had many wild and dangerous adventures during his life.  He took on many enemies.  But who was his worst and most deadly enemy?  It wasn’t Goliath.  David was not on the precipice of Hell as he strode into battle against the giant Philistine…on that day, he was just fine—spiritually secure, he was trusting in God completely.  Saul was not David’s worst enemy either.  David wasn’t far from God or fleeing from God’s grace as he was on the run from Saul and hiding in the caves of the Judean wilderness.  During those hard days, David was praying incessantly.  And, David’s faith wasn’t fading fast as he fled Jerusalem during the rebellion led by his own son, Absalom.  Even then, David was turning to God and praying and thanking God for his mercy.  No, David’s greatest danger came when no one was coming after him with weapons drawn and when no one was conspiring against his reign in Jerusalem.  It was during his self-created mess with Bathsheba and her husband Uriah, that his own flesh led him away from God into the deepening trap of ever-expanding sin.  Then, David was in real danger.  That’s when his relationship with God was on the line.  It was during the disastrous days of willful and unrepentant sin that David was in great peril.  His relationship with God dried up, and he was rushing forward at full speed on the highway to hell.  It was his own flesh that almost destroyed him.  The enemy that most needs to concern you is the same.  “I have met the enemy, and he, and she, is me.”  You have met the enemy, and he is you.  You are the one with the black hat.  The most dangerous incarnation of Satan is your own sinful flesh.  The identity of your enemy is clear-cut: your enemy is you.

David pleaded with God.  He ardently prayed for the destruction of his enemies.  “In your unfailing love, silence my enemies,” he begged God, “destroy all my foes.”  God answered that prayer.  He answered it, finally and fully on Good Friday.  The battle was waged in David’s own city.  And just outside the city’s walls, the fight was finished.  David’s greater heir, David’s Lord fought the battle and won.  He smashed the head of the serpent.  The enemy was destroyed.  The old dragon slain.  That’s what happened on the cross on that Friday.  And now, the same fate awaits every enemy.  Jesus the conqueror of Calvary, is not finished fighting.  No enemy is going to survive.  Jesus, the rider on the white horse in John’s Apocalypse, is king of kings and lord of lords, and he boldly goes into battle and utterly destroys every enemy of God’s kingdom.

So it is that Christ who vanquishes the old evil foe, will also lay low the old Adam the old Eve in each of us.  He is going to conquer your sinful flesh.  It will happen He has promised it.  The flooding waters of Baptism will tumble down over your corrupt, sinful nature, and the familiar and foul old enemy will be drowned finally and forever.  No enemy can survive a fight with the dragon-slayer of Calvary.  He conquers every foe—those without, and those within.  So, pray with David for the downfall and the destruction of your enemies.  And know that when you pray it, you are praying also for the destruction of your own sinful flesh.  It is a prayer that God will certainly answer.  He will destroy every enemy.  He will destroy your own flesh…only to make you brand new again on the Last Day.

You know who your enemy is.  You know where the black hat belongs.  You know that your own worst enemy, the one who threatens to drag you away from God is the one who lies within you.  A glance in God’s mirror, the law, always confirms the truth.  Look in the law’s mirror and you will see that the black hat rests on your own head.  Like it or not, you do know your enemy.  But, you also know the one who conquers, the one who rides the white horse and overcomes all the black forces of Satan and hell and your own dark sinful heart.  You know your Lord, your Protector, your Victor, your Warrior, your Hero, your conquering King.  You know Jesus, and before him, no enemy can stand.  Amen.

Know Your Place

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Luke 7:1-10

2nd Sunday after Pentecost  June 18, 2017

You’ve all had the experience.  Walking along a street or a park you are encountered by a dog—more precisely, a large adolescent dog with the body of an adult, but the personality and manners of a puppy.  On the other end of the perpetually taut leash, the owner strains to keep the unbounded strength and energy in check.  It’s not an easy job.  I appreciate the owners who work at teaching a degree of obedience to their pet; but, I wonder about some of the methods.  I’m not a particularly thin-skinned person.  I am not offended easily or often, and never deeply (whatever that would mean).  That being said, I can still remember a dog-encounter that did take me back a bit.  As the youthful but impolite lab fought to greet me, its owner fought back harder, and with his complete attention focused on his young charge, crisply snapped a command, obviously gained through obedience training.  With clipped authority, he said two words: “Leave it!”  With that, and a heave of the leash, they passed on their way—another step in the dog’s training accomplished.  It was, I suppose, a great success for dog and owner, but it struck me as odd that in the process, I had been reduced, presumably without malice, to an “it-to-be-ignored”—consigned to the status of a training exercise and categorized in the company of squirrels, fire hydrants, interesting French poodles, melting blobs of ice cream, and rotting possum carcasses.  “Leave it!”  Indeed.  I was an “it” to be snubbed by a dog.  I had been put in my place.  But, being a theologian of the cross prepares one for such things.

A theologian of the cross understands the hard truth about himself and is fully aware of where exactly he stands.  He does not think too highly of himself or try to preserve his own dignity or worth.  He knows that he is nothing more than a broken, fallible, creature who is dependent on his Creator and Lord for absolutely everything—and he’s fine with that.  Luther was a theologian of the cross.  That’s why he could refer to himself as a maggot-sack and a real hard-boiled sinner.  He knew the score.  So, to be considered an “it-to-be-ignored” actually seems about right for a theologian of the cross.  Most of you, I know, understand exactly what I’m talking about.  You’ve also been trained to be theologians of the cross.

Being a theologian of the cross has it benefits, then; it helps you grow a thick skin for one thing.  On the other hand, though, it also makes the story about the mysterious centurion who speaks, but never appears, become a story that is something of a problem.  It’s a bit hard to take, isn’t it?  Of course, it’s not the healing of the dying servant that is difficult—that’s no problem.  In fact, it’s exactly what we expect Jesus to do.  No, the hard part in this gospel narrative is all this talk about the worthiness of the nameless centurion.  This anonymous centurion must have been quite a guy.  He builds a synagogue for the people he helps rule.  He worries mightily about a slave that he treats like he’s part of the family, like his own child.  And, he even inspires a delegation of Jewish elders to heed his request and lobby Jesus on his behalf.  Yet, despite all of credentials and remarkable resume, there is a part of us that still chafes at the notion that this man is actually worthy.  It’s not an idea that we like at all.  Worthy is a category designation that we resist.  We know better.  We know that no one is worthy.  No one deserves preferential treatment.  No one earns Jesus’ attention and favor.  So, it bothers us that such a fuss is made over a man who is, well…just a man.  Someone, it seems to us, needs to put this guy in his place.  And someone does—the centurion puts himself in his place.  It turns out that he also knows what we are sure of: he is not worthy.  What a relief.  It’s good to know that at least someone in this story knows the score.

The centurion’s own self-assessment does not solve our problem, though.  After all, while the centurion may have had a humble attitude, this humility only serves to make everyone else in the story seem to consider him all the more deserving and worthy!  Not even Jesus disputes the argument about the man’s worthiness for healing intervention on behalf of his servant.  The problem of worthiness, then, is not so easily solved…and, could it be that our eagerness and even need for the centurion to be put in his place is prompted less by our yearning for the vindication of theological truth than it is for the vindication of our own sorry selves?  You know it as well as I do: we are all inveterate defenders of self.  It seems to be engrained, or at least certainly taught, as a part of our fallen human nature.  From our earliest years, we have learned that one of the most effective ways of comparing favorably with others is not to allow those others to rise too high above the common herd of ordinary sinners.  Those who set the bar too high make life difficult for the rest of us.  They skew the curve.  They need to be brought down a few pegs.

So, we are practiced in the art of putting people in their place—that is, the art of knocking people down, correcting over-estimates of self-worth, and exposing those who look good, as simply sinners like the rest of us.  We ridicule the pious man as a moralist and kill-joy, and we deride the one who seeks to do right as a self-righteous legalist.  And driven by our own perverse need for self-promotion, the pride in our own hearts too cheerfully delights when the righteous man does crash, and we rejoice to learn that the one once deemed worthy is worthless after all.  Whether we are contesting the worth of another, or simply secure and comfortable in our own presumed worth, pride always, inevitably, asserts itself.  The theologian of the cross is suppressed and banished from our hearts and we embrace instead the idol of self-importance and self-glorification.  We want to count.  Call it what you like, at the bottom, it is pride.  And pride not only leaves no room for the cross, it is also the very antithesis of the one and only thing that does count.

What is the one thing that counts, and how do we solve this worthiness problem?  To grasp this, we must remember that worth does not arise from within.  The one who is worthy, Luther says, is the one who knows full well his own absolute failure, his own desperate need, and so clings only to the word of promise.  The one who is worthy, is the one who knows and accepts his contingent and dependent place in the order of things and looks only, then, to the one source of hope and help.  What this means is that the one who is worthy is the one who has faith in the Son of Man.  It is faith and only faith that counts.  It is faith that makes a person worthy.  Thus, it is, that even as the centurion rightly insists that he is not worthy, and implores Jesus not to enter under his lowly roof, his own genuine worth is made clear.  He has complete and abiding faith in Jesus.  The fact that he is placing all of his hope for his dying servant only in Jesus is the essence of worthiness.  The centurion knows his place: only God is God, and he is nothing but a broken and desperate creature.  He is helpless in the face of death—Jesus is the Lord of life and death.  That this Roman officer already sees Jesus in the authoritative place of God who alone rules over life and death is remarkable and elicits the praise of Jesus.  Still, Jesus does not dispute the centurion’s humble self-estimate, and Jesus does not meet the Roman centurion He never makes it to his house.  He honors the request and does not enter under the roof of the centurion.  Without Jesus, the delegation returns home to find the slave already whole and healthy.

The centurion knows his place.  Much more importantly, though, Jesus knows his place.  He answers the prayer of the centurion.  He meets the need of the officer whose beloved servant is dying.  In his great mercy, Jesus honors the centurion, who is his own servant and treats the centurion like his own child.  Jesus gives him grace.  Jesus knows his place: it is with broken and desperate creatures, walking with them in their sorrow, suffering and heartache.  Jesus knows his place: fulfilling his Father’s will, redeeming and restoring the groaning creation, pushing back death, silencing sorrow, slaying sin, crushing Satan.  Jesus knows his place: with his people in their broken world, suffering and enduring Satan’s worst, for them.  Jesus knows his place: nailed to the cross that his broken sinful people, that we, broken and sinful people, have made by our own pride, and our own willful rebellion against God.  Jesus’ place is on the cross, because it is on the cross that he finally and fully destroyed death, ended sorrow, overcame sin, and smashed Satan.

Jesus knew his place, and the centurion knew his place. His words have become a prayer for those who also know the score: “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.”  The words have been pressed into a bit of remarkable liturgical usage.  Which serves well to remind us of the church’s great freedom in expressions of worship.   In many traditions, just before each communicant receives the host, the believer is taught to breathe the prayer: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.”  Uniting the Christian who is about to receive Christ’s greatest gifts with the humble but confident centurion is quite right.  Both understand their great need, and both understand that they can make no claim on Christ based on their own performance or actions.  The centurion and you, the Christian today, are alike in your need and humility, and alike in your confident faith.  The outcome, though, is completely different.

You rightly join the centurion and pray the honest and self-effacing prayer, “Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.”  But, this time, Jesus will have none of it.  He will not heed the request to stay away and heal from a distance.  In spite of your request and your very real sin and failure, he does his appointed work.  He presses forward anyway.  He comes.  Right under your roof, right into your mouth, right into your guts, right into the very midst of your life and your being, he comes.  He will not be deterred.  No sin will get in his way.  No self-deprecating humility will get in his way.  Though you do not deserve it, Jesus comes.  Christian faith knows the score, and rightly knows its place alongside the centurion pleading unworthiness; but then Christian faith must watch in amazement and joy, and marvel and delight in the unexpected audacity and appalling disordering when Jesus inverts the right ordering of things, ignores what is deserved and expected, and actually enters and then stays under your roof.  That is exactly what Jesus does. Jesus disregards the humble prayer for him to stay away.  Instead, he comes under your roof.  He comes and he puts you in your place—the place where he wants you to be.  You are his.  He dwells with you.  That’s your place: with Jesus.  Know your place and cherish it; you can, because, Jesus knows his place: on the cross, with his people…with you, his own child.  Amen.

Double Happiness

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Romans 5:1-5

June 11, 2017  Trinity Sunday

For most of my tenure as a parish pastor my family and I lived in a parsonage provided by the congregation.  On the whole, I was quite content with the arrangement.  When something went wrong with the house, it was never my problem.  I loved that.  Having that weight removed from my mind was completely worth some of little trade-offs, if there were any.  I actually rather liked living across the parking lot from the sanctuary.  A two-minute commute via my feet was great, and I had no problem handing out a key for the church doors whenever asked.  If the parsonage was a fishbowl, it didn’t bother me.  I didn’t even mind the small collection of congregational relics that occupied one corner of the basement: you know stuff that wasn’t in current use, but was “too nice” simply to discard.  Included in that assortment of old treasures was an obsolete steel typing table.  I remember it well because plastered across the front of it was another relic from the mid-twentieth century: a bold and bright vinyl bumper-sticker, placed there no doubt by some over-worked and underpaid secretary, declaring a great Christian cliché from a couple generations ago: “Work for the Lord—the pay’s not much, but retirement benefits are out of this world.”

Quite aside from the obviously annoying aspects of the cliché, such as the fact that like most cliché’s it’s trite and superficial, there is actually a deeper theological problem with the old bumper sticker—one that has not gone the way of typing desks and inane Christian humor.  Unfortunately, the theological idea at work in the notion of the old bumper sticker continues to be very much at work in the church in the early 21st century.  The phrase reveals something significant about Christians and their way of thinking.  The notion of bad pay but great retirement assumes what is taken for granted among Christians: that when you live your life for God, you will one day, some day, enjoy fabulous benefits and blessings; but in the meantime…well, there’s not much to be gained by living life God’s way, and in fact, there is much to be lost.  People often see Christianity as offering only deferred rewards and benefits—something valuable after you die, but not much good while you live.  Christianity is viewed as a religion that is more for later than it is for now.

Of course, there is certainly an element of truth in the idea that Christianity is a future-oriented faith.  We live looking or the day of resurrection.  The central truth of our faith is that Christ came to make people right with God; he came to restore his creation.  He came to put you back into a vital relationship with your Creator that will never end.  He came to give you the assurance that in him you have eternal life and a place in his everlasting Kingdom on the Last Day.  That’s what Jesus came to do, certainly.  That’s what he did for you, and it will all be fulfilled just as promised when Jesus comes again to raise his people and to restore all of his creation.  This is the first and most important truth that undergirds our Christian confession.

The great joy and blessing of the promise of the resurrection at the return of Christ should not, however, be the only happiness that you know as a Christian.  There is more to Christianity than a promise that will be fulfilled on the last day.  God does not just make promises for a distant someday.  He is, on the contrary, a God also of the present and the now.  The Chinese have a character or symbol that appears often in their artwork.  It’s formed by writing or drawing the character for happiness, and then joining and overlapping it with the same character again, creating a new character called, naturally, double-happiness.  Not surprisingly, double-happiness shows up a lot at weddings.  It serves as a statement and a blessing.  The idea is a rich and real happiness, not one that is superficial and easily disturbed, but one that is robust and unshakeable.  Double-happiness is what God has in mind for his people.  Yes, he wants you happy, that is fully complete and joy-filled, at the end when you join him in his eternal glory.  But, he also wants you to be happy—joy-filled and driven by an abiding confidence right now as you live life in this world.  Both parts are important to God.  His plan for you is double-happiness.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  This is not a commercial for the glory-seekers and good-life hucksters who masquerade as Christian teachers and preachers.  The sort of happiness God desires for you in this life is not a life that overflows with good stuff in a non-stop parade of blessings intended to make you smile.  Your best life now, is not the objective of Christianity.  No, the point is simply that your eternal life in Christ does not begin at death or even at the resurrection from the dead.  Your eternal life, a life marked by genuine joy and contentment—in other words, the greatest kind of happiness—begins when you are baptized.  You’re living it, now.  Today, you live in eternal life following God’s plan, knowing God’s grace, trusting God’s promises, and delighting in God’s joy.  Happiness to come, happiness today.  Double-happiness: it’s God’s plan for your life.  It begins now.

You know this.  You know that you are supposed to be filled with joy and buoyed by happiness even now in this life and in your day-to-day routine.  But reality seems to negate it.  No matter what God promises, suffering and difficulties persist.  You still feel pain.  You still endure hardships.  Happiness seems impossible.  Maye that’s why so many Christians give up on the present and relegate their faith to a future-only relevance.  It holds a promise for someday, but for today, it seems to make very little difference.  Faith is kept around and cultivated only to the extent necessary to keep it functioning at a base level, much like paying the premium on your insurance policy.  You need to keep it current—for some day.  But, for today, it’s of no real use.

Since their Christian faith seems to have so little value for life right now, too many who claim the name of Christ look elsewhere for meaning and happiness in life.  They look to the world.  They figure that since their Christian faith is only good for someday, it is the world that will help them find some glimmer of happiness and pleasure, today.  Indeed, many church-goers actually assume that God is at odds with their own present happiness.  It is though that God does not want people to be happy or have joy in the present.  It’s almost taken for granted that if you are going to find any real pleasure or happiness in life, today, then at least one of God’s fun-killing commandments will have to be violated—or certainly bent a little.  People don’t believe that they will actually find genuine joy and real happiness by yielding fully to God’s will for their lives today.  They think that if they were to go all-out and let God take over every single part of their lives, then they would surely forfeit any chance they might have had of being able to salvage a little fun and enjoyment in an otherwise suffering and pain-ridden world.  To be happy and to have fun, they believe that they must keep God and his kill-joy rules and laws at arm’s length.

The result of this thinking is people who consider themselves to be good followers of Christ, and who trust whole-heartedly in him for their eternity after death, but who live in the meantime as if it is up to them to do their best to find some happiness in whatever form the world has to offer.  These people are constantly trying to figure out how much of the world’s answers to what provides happiness they can enjoy without putting their eternity-insurance-policy into jeopardy.  And so people go to church simply to avoid the possibility of hell, but have little or no interest in actually following God and his will for their daily living.  These people have bought the lie that God or at least his church, only wants to infringe on their happiness and only says “no” to every joy in life.  God, they think, does not want his people to have any fun.  There are people who believe that all-out followers of God must live lives that are altogether boring, severe, austere and devoid of any real happiness.

This, of course, is completely false.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  God is not a boring or deathly serious God.  He delights in his creation, and he wants his creatures to delight in his creation as well.  God did not create you to live a dull and dreary existence.  He doesn’t want his people, he certainly doesn’t want you, to be glum and long-faced groveling in suffering and woe, and utterly despairing of hope and joy in this life.  That is not God’s plan.  To follow God’s will with all of your life is not to sacrifice all happiness now for the sake of a distant, promised happiness, later.  God created you to know deep and certain joy and genuine happiness later and now.  Eternal life begins now.  To live in his will is to know double happiness.  The reality is the opposite of what people outside and even inside the church assume: the reality is that outside of Christ and his will, there is no real happiness in this life; there is only futility and superficiality.  But within God’s plan there is perfect joy and genuine happiness.

This is not to say that there are not still sorrows and pain and difficulties to be endured.  There is no magic that will bring you an endless procession of material blessings just because you pray or believe or give the right way.  No, the happiness that comes when you follow Christ is the wonderful freedom of knowing that the God who created you, redeemed you, and is now fully restoring you, the one and only Triune God, is your God and he is completely in control of everything.  That’s the source of perfect joy.  That’s the source of real happiness.  When you yield your life to him, you find, the meaning, fulfillment, and happiness that people spend their lives trying but failing to find.  When you live in God’s will, then even the sufferings and sorrows of life are transformed—you see them now as tools that God uses to accomplish his purposes in your life and to bring you more perfectly in sync with him.  Don’t settle for an abridged or deffered Christianity that’s only good after you die.  Live in all-out Christianity that takes the coming glory and joy of Christ’s Second Coming and pulls it forward into the reality of the here and now.  Live in that kind of Christianity and you’ll have more than double happiness, you’ll know happiness that is multiplied exponentially and that explodes into every moment of your life, today.

Living as Christ’s disciple does come with a remarkable retirement plan.  But God also pays incredible wages of peace, joy, contentment, and happiness every single day in this present life.  Happiness later and happiness right now—double happiness.  That’s what God, your God, the only true God, gives to you.  Amen.

God Speaks German

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Acts 2:7-11

June 4, 2017  Pentecost

Communicating an idea is no easy thing.  It seems simple enough, just open your mouth and speak a thought.  But, the reality is far more complicated.  First, there must be an idea or message, then words must be chosen that will capture the idea adequately, those words must be formed and then conveyed across a medium where a receiver or listener collects the symbols and sounds that stand for words and then deciphers those words into an idea—which, it is hoped, will be the same idea that started in the mind of the sender.  On top of this basic process are all the additional problems of context, vocabulary, dialects, social, educational, and gender factors, and non-verbal communication.  Considering all the problems that can arise in the process of communication, it is a small miracle that any ideas are ever accurately communicated—indeed, I sometimes wonder whether any listener ever truly understands the full message that a speaker intended to communicate.  And that’s when both the speaker and the hearer are supposed to be speaking the same language.

Communication breakdowns happen all the time.  They happen between people of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds, different educational levels, and different generations.  And though you might not believe it to be possible, communication breakdowns even happen in the most intimate, committed, and understanding relationship between husband and wife.  Yet, the greatest of all communication breakdowns are those that afflict the communication between man and God.  But, of course, in the case of this communication failure, the fault is all one-sided.  The fault is all ours.

The biggest and most common form of communication breakdown between people and God is the assumption that God can’t be heard because he doesn’t communicate.  It’s true that God does not ordinarily speak with a booming voice from the clouds, or with whispers in the darkness, but the reality is that God has made himself known in this world.  He has spoken.  In a Bethlehem stable, on the mountainsides of Galilee, in an upper room of Jerusalem, and profoundly outside the walls of that same city, God has spoken his truth into this world.  He has declared his love for the world and every one of its people.  He has announced his plan to reconcile the world and make it right with him again.  He proclaimed this through his Son’s teaching and words of course, but also through the very life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  In Jesus, God speaks.  And in the church of Jesus, here, he continues to speak right into the present.

But, so many people miss what God is saying—and they miss not because God does not speak clearly—he has and he does, but because they simply aren’t interested in hearing what God has to say.  You know it’s true: if you don’t think someone has anything to say to you, you don’t hear them when they speak right to your face.  A significant part of good communication is cultivating an attitude of expectation so that you are tuned-in and ready to hear what is said.  If your working assumption is that nothing is going to be said to you, you quit listening.  This is why people claim not to hear what God has to say; and why they insist that if God did have something to say to them, he should be more explicit and clear about it.  It’s not true.  God is speaking.  People aren’t hearing him because they don’t want to hear him.  But, you know better than this.  You know that you need to keep your ears and your heart in tune with God’s speaking so that you are able to hear what he has to say to you.

The communication breakdown that tends to be a problem for Christian people is not that they tune out God’s speaking entirely, but that they don’t hear all that God has to say.  Somehow, many Christians have gotten the idea that God only speaks religious language.  Maybe this is how you tend to listen to God.  You are persuaded that God has helpful and important things to say about how to worship, what to believe about spiritual things, when to baptize children, how to celebrate Christmas, and about life after death and that sort of thing—you know, religious and spiritual stuff.  But, because you believe God only speaks a language of religion, you miss all the other vitally important things that he wants to say to you about all those supposedly “un-spiritual” parts of life.

Of course, you may insist that you do actually believe that God speaks to much more of life than merely the religious aspects on Sunday morning, but does your life reflect that claim?  Do you live like you believe God has something important and relevant to tell you about all those other parts of your life besides the religious and spiritual parts?  Far too many Christians, it seems, are quite content to give God his place on Sunday morning, and grant him some latitude over the spiritual aspect of their lives, but they are unwilling to give him any sway over the rest of their lives.  It’s as if God is can’t speak the language of ordinary life, but only knows Sunday morning liturgical responses.  Too many Christians live as if they don’t believe that God has something relevant to say to them about how they do their job on Monday morning, or about how they talk to their spouse on Tuesday evening.  They are not convinced that God has vital things to tell them about how they shop for a car, or choose a career, pick someone to date, or raise a child.  Those things don’t seem spiritual, and so people aren’t listening to hear what God might have to say about them.  But, he does have something to say about every single one of these things.  When you don’t hear him speak and don’t understand what he says, you are missing out on what he wants you to hear, know, and do.  You are missing out on God’s best for your life and for your family.  You are missing out on much of the joy and wonder that he wants you to experience in life.

Whether you recognize it or not, God is speaking to you about every single part of your life.  He speaks to you in words that are relevant, potent, and exactly what you need to hear.  That, my friends, is the wonderful and powerful message of Pentecost.  The point of Pentecost is that God speaks to you in your language---the language of everyday, real life.  He speaks to you wherever you are, and whatever you are doing.  God is not chained to some overly poetic, pious, King-James-esque archaic language.  He speaks vividly and truthfully to you right now about every area of your life right now.

If you don’t hear what God is saying to you about your real-life situations, then you are simply not listening.  If you can’t hear God speak to you about all of your life and all of your choices and actions, then perhaps it’s because you would rather not hear what he has to say.  Could it be that you like your life just the way that it is, and you’d prefer not to hear about what God would have you doing differently?  Could it be that you like to contain God within a Sunday-only-box and limit him to religious language alone?  If you have shut-out God’s words that are spoken in the language of everyday life and everyday struggles, you suffer for it.  You miss the comfort and joy that God wants you to have.  You go through life dragging burdens and worries that God fully understands and desires to endure with you, but you miss his words because you think that he doesn’t speak your language.  You go through life making business and personal decisions relying on nothing but your own wits and feelings and advice from other fallen creatures, when the entire time God waits to speak his words to you about the choices and challenges you face.  God speaks to all of your life.  Listen.

God is holy, majestic, all-powerful, and completely beyond our ability ever to comprehend him.  Yet, the miracle of his love is that he transcends the impossible space between himself and his creation, and speaks to you in direct and personal ways that you cannot misunderstand.  God does not require you to learn his language before you can hear him speak.  No, he blesses you by speaking your language.  God knows your language.  He knows every human thought, every human fear, every human need, every human emotion.  He knows the language of despair and the language of loneliness.  He knows the language of stress and anxiety.  He knows the language of debt and poverty.  He knows the language of broken hearts and wounded spirits.  He knows the language of indecision and guilt and shame.  He knows the language of disaster and regret.  He knows them all.  He is completely fluent in every human language.  When others don’t and can’t have a clue about your concerns and struggles, when other people just can’t understand your thoughts and your feelings and your language, God understands perfectly.

God bridges the language barrier in Christ.  He knows exactly what you are trying to say, he knows even when you don’t know how to put it into words.  He knows because he has joined himself to your world and has taken your flesh to himself.  He knows the language of human living.  He knows by personal experience.  God does not just talk church talk.  He does not speak only the language of religion.  God is not relevant only to those parts of your life that are spiritual.  Christ’s gospel of grace and forgiveness is so great and so all-encompassing that it envelopes every area of your life.  Not only does the gospel assure you of an eternity of peace and joy; but it also transforms your present into a reality marked by peace and joy.  God’s language of grace speaks to each of us.  It’s not a magic, spiritual language.  It’s not veiled in shadows and rituals.  God speaks plain English.  Listen, he’s talking to you right now in the words of the sermon.  Week after week he speaks to you, here, giving you direction for your real life and real challenges.  And in a few short minutes he will speak to you in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.  Here, he will speak his word of forgiveness.  Here, you will hear his word of comfort.  Here, he speaks the language of love in ways that you can taste and smell and hold and cherish.  Don’t miss what he’s speaking to you in the sermon.  Don’t miss what he’s saying to you in the sacrament.  In Word and Sacrament, God is speaking your language.

In Lutheran circles, there’s an old and worn out joke that God speaks German.  It’s true of course.  God does speak German.  And, he speaks Spanish and French, and Swahili, and Hindi, and Mandarin, and English.  He’s also fluent in the language of laughter and happiness, and tears and sadness, and fear and apprehension, and shame and embarrassment, and indecision and failure.  His communication never breaks down and never fails.  He knows every language of every human heart.  He knows your language.  He hears your words and your thoughts and your feelings; and in your language, he speaks to every one your words and thoughts and feelings.  God speaks the language of your heart.  He’s speaking to you today, as his Holy Spirit descends again and fills his people.  Through his Son, through his Spirit, he speaks.  And he will keep on speaking to you about everything every day.  Keep listening.  Amen.